A Drabble A Day
by Swyfte
Summary: нιѕ mask has fallen. ѕнє'ѕ head over heels; нє'ѕ heartless. ѕσмєωнєяє, they're all dropping like flies. α coℓℓєcтιση of drabbles by Swyfte. Something of a challenge.
1. Thistle

**Some of you may have guessed what this is about. The title is a bit of a give away. During 2015, I will be attempting to post a drabble every day. Yikes. I've randomly generated 365 prompts; the first is 'Thistle'. If you'd also like to participate in this challenge, you're most welcome. Hopefully it will help with creativity and fixing a bit of writer's block. Just PM me for the prompt list. You're welcome to write drabbles in any category.**

**I happen to be in a different time zone than the majority of people on FanFiction. It's already New Years for me, which is why it's already posted.**

**If you've also read The Poisoned And The Pure, this will prominently feature characters from both it and its sequel. Guess who's up first?**

* * *

In his dreams, all he sees is black. His dreams consist of colours, of course, textures, images, but the only thing he ever looks at his her. He knows this is the only way he'll ever see her again; burning from the inside out, forming a wail that's not quite his name. He never feels the thunder of his paws against the earth, too late, too slow, never hears it. He only feels a sharp, curious tug in his chest, a thistle, a thorn, a parody of his namesake. Each time he wakes, he wishes she'd taken him with her.


	2. Wide-Eyed

Jayflight can't seem to blink after they tell her the news. Of course Smokefang's death was inevitable; in PureClan, no one will ever taste immortality. That doesn't mean she can't be shocked- shocked, but not sad. Never sad.

That's the way things work in PureClan. _Sadness_ doesn't exist. It's not real. And maybe she misses his smiles, on dark and lonely nights, and his handsome gold eyes. It's hard to stomach the fact that she'll never see him again. It's on these nights, where the shadows are too close, the loneliness too poignant, when she cannot blink, wide-eyed. Sad, just a little.


	3. Meddle

Morningpaw ought not to meddle. She shouldn't fiddle with cats' lives. But no one's ever told her this, and she doesn't see why not. It amuses her, that words can be the only things she needs to change something. Change it forever. So when she sees Rivershade and Firfall, out in the forest, acting not quite as they should, she involves herself. Morningpaw has no restraints. She goes to Oakstar, sees the admiration in his eyes. He tells her the problem will be solved; the next morning, it is, and her parents become the first cats she sees floating down the river.


	4. Knead

They curl up together, a blend of light and dark. Sablefrost tries not to feel awkward, but she can't _not_, because let's face it, she's cuddling with Strongclaw. At least the calico seems happy, purring so hard her own body moves. She needs him, his happiness, and even his scent, because right now she's utterly miserable, missing her lost kits and stinking of the city. They've fled into the forest, leaving her remaining children with Nettlecloud. '_Let's talk,_' Strongclaw had said, but there are no words to say now. Strongclaw kneads her shoulders softly with his paws, and tells her not to worry.


	5. Flower

Strongclaw can't speak. Words were his favourite past-time, his mask, the source of many complaints. It's only taken the death of the cat he loved to shove the words back down his throat. So when he takes her kits to the meadow, he's silent. They don't really understand what's happened, and nor do they know the bloodstains the meadow hides, so Oakkit entices Emberkit into a rough-and-tumble game (which she loses) and he stares at a patch of flowers. They look bright and happy: so unlike her. Strongclaw reminds himself now that Sablefrost is _feeding_ the flowers. A part of her, however small, is obnoxious colours, soft petals, sweet smell. He crushes one under his foot as he stands, because he's not in the mood for flowers.


	6. Shield

Asunder would rather be anywhere but here. It's not his uncomfortable position- wedged between two tree branches- nor the fact that Perica's breathing heavily down the back of his neck. It's because, peering through the leafy canopy that crowns his face, he can see their targets approaching. The fabled, feared, gruesome cats from the north. And he's about to attack them.

A screech echoes through the trees and he drops down. He hits another cat, a pale grey tabby, and they both crash to the ground. He whirls, sees blood and gore, hears the shrieks of a multitude. He hits, he is hit, and it is a blur. It ends when he crouches over Drina, who's only really a kit, when the pleading for their lives fail.

* * *

**You may not remember this guy. He's from the ambush in Chapter 38, I think.**


	7. Shiver

She's too young to know where she is, too tiny to move. The city is a big place, and this pathetic scrap of fur has just washed up on its banks. She's alive, somehow, and wailing as hard as her waterlogged lungs will allow. Mud covers her sodden grey pelt, and weeds have tangled themselves around her paws. Hours ago she was the prettiest in the litter, and now she's been abandoned, left to the river's mercy, as so many before her have been. The kit doesn't know she's being watched, but nearby amber eyes are scrutinising her every movement. But she catches the scent of milk in the air, and moves blindly. Squeals, because instinct tells her this stranger will help her, because trust is all she's known despite the betrayal she won't remember. And the stranger, the she-cat with the soft smell, does help her, because she'll never be as heartless as PureClan.


	8. Motivate

Her motivation was a subtle, subconscious thing. At first. It was only a silly idea , a _what-if_. Brightstar thought she'd brushed it aside, until her deputy's mate succumbed to Greencough; her second-in-command was suddenly useless, lost in his grief. Suddenly it was more than idea. It seemed like an aspiration. She'd seen first-hand her Clan's weakness when it came to love, although it was an affliction she hadn't suffered. Brightstar had always curled up with her ambitions at night, never a resident tom. That made it easier, to turn her back on love. It only fuelled her motivation, all the stronger.

* * *

**I had absolutely no idea what to do for this one. I was sitting there muttering, "Motivation, motivation," and hating my prompt-picking skills. Then I made a snack and had a brainwave.**


	9. Ablaze

They discover it by accident. They're still new to their territory; naively so. Greyfern volunteers to test the herbs, because Brightstar promises to give her someone good. Not Voletail, with his leery smile, or Brownclaw, who is literally the blandest cat she's ever met. So she eats the herbs they find, and it's mostly alright. She feels ill a few times, but they mostly stumble across herbs they knew in the old forest. But then the berries are brought back to camp. Greyfern expects them to be sweet; instead they're sharp, and she'd rather spit them back out than swallow.

Minutes later, Greyfern starts to burn. There's a fire within, seething to get out, and the silver tabby realizes, as she writhes, that she won't get anyone at all. The inferno spares nothing.


	10. Icy

_Are you as icy as your frozen eyes suggest, or are you a normal, living, breathing, feeling cat?_ He doesn't regret the words. _Your heart isn't made of ice. You're melting_. But even he doubts the truth of them. He's not sure if there's anything beneath her mask- her beautiful, intricate mask of frost, so cold it burns. He licks the blood from his claw; half-surprised to find it warm. They lash out with words, the both of them, barbed with ice and hoarfrost. He wants her to melt, to thaw her, but she only storms outside, into the hail and the cold, where she belongs.


	11. Voyage

_Run away with me, Sablefrost. Come with me somewhere we won't have to hide._

The words resonate in her ears for a moment. She's about to dismiss it- as she always does, whenever Strongclaw tries to suggest something- when she pauses. It's a far from perfect plan, but it's the only chance at escape, at clawing her way into a new life, that she'll ever get.

"Yes," she breathes. It's crazy, it's most certainly stupid, and it's not without its consequences. Strongclaw is blinking at her in shock; she steps forward, pressing her forehead to his muzzle in what may be the most affectionate thing she's ever done.

"Then let's go," he whispers against her ear.


	12. Bolt

They're out of there like a flash, because danger is imminent and altogether too real. Strongclaw limps as he runs, and Sablefrost is slower than she used to be; the city, and the days after it, have taken a toll on both of them. But still, they're running. He refuses to think of it as fleeing- they're retreating, saving their own lives, _preserving_ themselves. The forest turns to rock beneath their paws. By unspoken agreement, they're headed towards the back of the territory. It doesn't have a precise ending, because no cat really bothers to mark borders. The fact is that it's land, and it's theirs- they know it, and so should everyone else. But they're following the gorge, furrowing a path out of the place they both knew as home and as hell.

* * *

**Bit of a continuation on from Day 11's 'Voyage'. **

**And please, a note for reviewers out there: this isn't a competition, or a guessing game, so you don't really need to review with the name. I'd more appreciate a review with concrit and the like c:**


	13. Hairy

They face each other in the shadows, hackles raised and claws extended. Neither intended for this to become such a hairy situation- especially on the outskirts of camp- but Strongclaw can't help his sly digs and his snarls, no more than Smokefang can resist trying to push him away from Sablefrost.

"Leave her alone," the calico growls. He knows this immense grey cat has hurt her. She doesn't deserve that.

"Don't get in my way," Smokefang retorts, in a rumble far lower than anything Strongclaw can achieve. "She _will_ come back to me and she _will _leave you."

"She doesn't want you." Strongclaw is on the verge of ripping his ears to bleeding ribbons- maybe, if the warrior won't listen to him, he'll listen to pain.

Smokefang insists, softly, "She does." But he can't meet Strongclaw's eyes.

* * *

**This drabble is completely my wifey's fault.**


	14. Slow

_Slow_, is her descent into the dark. She starts out normal, but the laws of dead cats buried years ago twist her, somehow, dim her light. Ruin her. Maybe it's always been slated down, scratched on some crumbling stone, that she'd never stay sane for long. That her way down was an arduous path. That she'd enjoy it, waking up madder and madder each day. How much it would suit her. Perfect, on the outside, sleek and pretty; shadows and smoke inside, twining their laughter with hers. She starts off young, muzzle split with the predecessor of her favourite smirk, but by the time she drowns her senile leader in the river, she's gone.

* * *

**all hail batmaaan**


	15. Borrow

Sorrelstorm sticks his head into her den, blinking in wide-eyed innocence. She jumps and swears at the sudden intrusion, scattering the pile of poppy seeds she has meticulously gathered.

"What?" Specklefrost snaps, not bothering to look up from her ruined work. Her sigh is neither quiet nor polite.

"I need to borrow something," the ginger tom says, taking another step into her den. He stops at the sight of her flicking tail, the heated glare she's giving the seeds at her paws. He always treads carefully, where she's concerned.

"And _this_ time you need...what?"

Bravely, the medicine cat swallows and moves further into her den. "It's night-time," he informs her, unhelpfully. "You should probably get some sleep now."

Specklefrost growls and sweeps the remaining seeds away. "What do you want, Sorrelstorm?" But she lets him nose her towards her nest, a messy, scrappy thing, and doesn't complain when he curls up with her. She forgets how young he is, how much his role affects him, how much he needs her. She's strong where he breaks.

She'll let him borrow anything he wants.


	16. Cry

_Cries._

What's that? She hears something; a soft sound, outside her door.

_It's more than a cry, a plea. She doesn't know that. The housecat can't tell it's a lie, a lure, a warning all rolled into one._

* * *

**Super short one today, sorry. An alternate drabble would be batmaaan sitting in a corner crying over sablestrong and how I ruined it forever.**


	17. Stone

He knows it's his fault, that he's going to die. That if he wasn't so thick-headed, so shortsighted, he wouldn't now be falling. But Strongclaw's stolen what he desires most in this world- Sablefrost, and even her kits too. So he sprang into the fight that had been brewing for months. He threw himself headlong at the calico, and in return, Strongclaw threw him over the cliff. He doesn't have long to think, as he plummets like a stone. Smokefang doesn't contemplate what kind of sound he will make, when he meets the rock below him. He's wondering, if the moment he disappeared, Sablefrost looked relieved.


	18. Robin

They sneak out together, the morning before the raid. Of course she's slow and cumbersome, and he's making jokes about her weight, and how she should cut back on the voles. But neither his snark nor her speed is the point. She's fully aware that one or both of them may not return. She's certain, positive that her kits won't.

Beneath his quips and his easy grins, Strongclaw knows this. He beguiled her into this dawn ramble, and in between jokes sends her sad, thoughtful , birdsong is the only music they'll ever hear or need.

He sits her beneath a myriad of branches, brushes her fur with his own, and stares at the sky until she wishes it had been him; she wishes it had always been him.


	19. Familiar

He doesn't want to go on the raid, but what can he do? Say no? Strongclaw knows that won't work. So he trudges along with the rest of them, trying to pretend that that each step wipes her blood from his paws, just a little. It doesn't. It's still there in every way that matters. They reach the city in record time- a slow record, that is. Everyone's wary and cautious, checking in shadows and behind bushes for ambushes that aren't there. But there are no attacks, not that it matters. Strongclaw has no life left to take.

For a moment he feels alive, when he sees a familiar face slinking between roses. His heart stops, just like hers did, and that's when he remembers.

_He killed her._ She isn't the black cat among the flowers; she's a river creature now, and took her last breath with his.


	20. Serious

He's not one for seriousness. He could die, and he'd make a joke about it. He doesn't have a choice when Sablefrost kits. When they pluck her children from her side, and she's barely more than a shadow, too faint to even voice a whisper. When he threatens the city tom, there's no laughter in his eyes. He doesn't back away, grinning, to tell him he's only kidding. For once in his life, he finds he's deadly serious.


	21. Grasshopper

Technically, he's not sneaking out of camp. He's walking out, brave and bold where everyone can see him. Everyone but his mother, but she's always busy. He has privileges, this tiny patchwork kit with a streak of arrogance far too big for his body to contain.

He spends a few minutes in the forest at most. It's a sensory overload, all these smells, the rich sights and the loud sounds. Something twitches near his paw; he glances down, spotting some green insect with bowed legs. The kit pokes it cautiously, and it hops out of his reach. He scoffs at this. For him, nothing is untouchable.

He swaggers after it and spears it with several thorn-sharp kit claws, smirking. Picking it up, he decides he'll show his mother. So he ends his outing early, strolling back to camp with the insect clamped between his teeth. She's sitting near her den, conversing in low tones with the pale-furred deputy. He saunters up to the pair of them; Iceface glances at him with dull, bored eyes.

"Not now, Strongkit." She barely looks at him, but irritation flashes across her face.

So he walks away, and learns not to be disappointed. Learns that it's _not now, not ever_.


	22. Advice

Self-advising doesn't work.

But in the absence of a father figure, and in the immediate presence of the Warrior Code, Strongclaw is all he's got.

At first, his advice is the worst in the forest. He tells himself to take a direct approach. He doesn't shield his prestige or arrogance. She hates it, but he persists, sneaking her sly smiles and smug comments. Talks about the future- the one they'll share.

It's her face he watches when Morningstar pairs them together. On the surface, she looks blank. But he's watched her often enough to notice the little things. The disappointment she's barely masking, the hatred she's hardly hiding. She's resigned the the future Strongclaw has so often warned her about.

* * *

**What the hell is this, 365 days of Strongclaw?**


	23. Risk

It's a risk, following her. Yet the first time he saw her, cowering beneath her scars, he knew he had no choice.

She wants her revenge and he wants his freedom- and maybe hers too. They've built her a cage and she shivers in it, dreams and wakes in it. He doesn't know much about her, but he knows this. She's escaped them, but she'll never be free until their blood melts her chains.

He shares her cage at night, keeps her warm when her dreams chill her to the bone. Ignores the risks and everything they stand for, because he's already succumbed.


	24. Twist

It's twisted, how they're paired together and forced to share a nest. After all, Strongclaw's the reason Smokefang is dead. Strongclaw is the reason two kits no longer have a mother.

He doesn't know if she hates him. She doesn't know either. She wears her indifference without reluctance, and neither cat is sure if there's more to the facade.

They don't talk each other- actually, Strongclaw doesn't talk, period. The only one he'd rather share words with is dead. She killed his jokes, his wit, his voice. Jayflight doesn't try to bring him back. They're strangers, even when they share breath in the pitch of night.


	25. Fluid

He sees more of Strongclaw's blood than hers. Of course, he's fresh out of a fight, and Sablefrost hasn't unsheathed her claws for months. But then they're fighting, and it's hard to tell whose blood is whose, or if it makes any difference at all.

Sablefrost is winning and he lets himself hope. Thinks that this one small remnant of Embertooth will live. Strongclaw kicks her into the air and he lets that hope die

Thornstreak wasn't meant to get what he wants.

* * *

**The 'fluid' in this drabble is blood. I know it didn't say it, but it would've turned out all 'cliché-trying-to-find-a-synonym-for-blood'.**


	26. Moony

It hurts, when they call her mad. She isn't crazy; she's a revolutionist. Her idea, her plan, it's not the mark nor burden of the criminally insane. At first it's her own Clan that calls her moony, that begins to doubt her leadership. But she gets through to them- makes them understand. Reclaims her sanity, in their eyes at least. When she shares her plans at the Gathering, full of the hope and promise of a new era, they scoff at her. Brightstar soon discovers there are worse insults to be called, after all.


	27. Pine

Swanpath nearly doesn't care when her son is born. She can barely keep her eyes open, let alone feel what is expected or obligated of her. Or rather, outlawed by the very cats around her. She peers at him, her small third kit, barely listening when they announce _he's a tom_. He's a dark, sleek red. Three heartbeats into what should be his very brief existence, and he's already crying. She's not sure if this is normal; she's too young after all.

Pinekit is one of the rare few who receive a reprieve. His mother finds this ironic; her sister, too, has already lived far longer than she was meant to. She wonders if her family luck extends to her. Swanpath thinks she may need it.


	28. Lethal

He is lethality personified. He's deadly, he's cruel; he knows how to hold a smirk. Arseni's a street cat, and he's required to be all of those things, but he's so much more. He can kill, he can crush, he can wink at a queen and set her off in a fit of giggles. The tabby tom's never met a she-cat he can't tame, a tom he can't gut. And, well, if he _has_...he has a henchman to take care of that.

And then he sees her, gleaming like a coin under the street-lights, small and hunched and _oh_\- Arseni likes shiny things. He can't help but strut closer, can't resist inviting her back to his nest. Calla has already been shunted to one side. He's tired of her. She's tiny, and boring, and vocalizes in squeaks.

But this sleek she-cat is more than he is. Deadlier, meaner, crazier- and it takes her claws in his throat to realize that. That he's been rendered to nothing.


	29. Hapless

He stands for a moment, staring after her, wondering how things went from _okay, but illegal_ to _screwed up and probably less illegal._

All right. Smokefang knows he got a little too familiar to Jayflight- but she's his _pair_, and they're supposed to have kits. And he guesses he shouldn't have gotten so familiar with Sablefrost as well- but it's hard to resist these things. He knows actions have consequences, but he's never been slapped quite so hard in the face by the aftermath before.


	30. Aware

Slow is the dawn, the precipice of realization, the awareness that all around her is not quite right. That this is not purity. Embertooth is surrounded by laws that should not exist. Embertooth is a puppet, and her strings are tugging her down a path well-worn by many paws, as ignorant as her. Just as blind, just as content to be led and molded and shaped.

But Embertooth sees her kits for the first time and she begins to understand that she's been fed lies, and swallowed them with a purr.

* * *

**This is working out soo well. But please review guys, it does help hearing your opinions and thoughts!**


	31. Devilish

Slick silver smile, dark deep eyes. Teeth that grin and gut and ivory claws. They call him handsome, before he slits their throats with a weeping leer. They call him a shadow, because essentially, that's all he is; both shade and shady, a follower, a stalker, gone when the midday sun bares its glaring white eye. When it's dark he's everywhere at once.

When she commissions him with a plea, he decides not to kill her. She promises not richness- she has none- nor fame- he has that already, even if no one knows his face. It's the promise of freedom that lures him. The death of an age-old enemy; the open position of new devil on the block.


	32. Dash

Khia's not completely reliant. Of course she knows there is a way out; of course she's tried it. It took several days of planning, and watching, and the desperation she couldn't forget. She didn't want to leave her brother behind, but he'd leave the basement one day; Khia knew all she'd ever amount to at the Bayard's would be being another queen in a another cage. No one wants she-kits; no one decent.

One morning she left her brother with a sloppy lick on his cheek, and snuck up the stairs in the quiet stealthy way she has adopted. Khia skirted the guards and cages and toms alike, gave the snoring cat by the door a narrowed glace. Then she was through the flap, breathing in air, filled with smog as it was, that was ten times clearer than the dim gloom of the house. She took one step down a path, overgrown with weeds and sporting more cracks than a tabby had stripes.

She made it to the end of the path before she realized moving one inch further was a sudden impossibility.

_She couldn't do it_. She couldn't leave, and she hated herself for it. Hated that her bravado was nothing without her brother.

Rhydderch found her ten minutes later, and took her back without a word.


	33. Glorious

The river is a glorious beast. Roaring without a voice, sleek and silver without shape or form. In PureClan, the river is not a way of life but a rite of death.

Morningstar thinks of it as her own; that the blood in her veins is some liquid kin to the water that slides through their territory every day. She likes the river more, perhaps, than any cat she's ever known. They have a purpose. They _fulfill_ their purpose, and then with a wink and a gleam they're whisking away. The river is _pure_, and if only she could wash away her sins...


	34. Melt

That night, he has a beautiful dream. They are standing in the sunlight, him and her, the way he's always thought it should be. The grass is soft beneath his paws; softer, thinks Strongclaw, than Sablefrost's pelt of midnight and ebony.

But that's an easy feat to accomplish, because as she turns to him, he sees she's covered in frost, that it clings to her. That ice really is her second skin. She has blue eyes, more glacial than cerulean.

When he touches her, she is rent apart. She bleeds, and it's red, and for that he is surprised. It burns through her blankness, melts away her frost. He apologizes, but her eyes don't change. They're _blue, blue, blue_, and he can't stand the colour.

Her name in his broken words; a flicker of green; and then he knows she's gone.

* * *

**No lies; that one depressed me.**


	35. One Bad Apple

They live in a garden, and it's perfect. He tells her it is, because she's young, and she can't tell. He tells her it is their garden, theirs alone, and they'll keep it like that forever. He has few rules; serve him; assist him; do not touch the fruit. And she complies. She likes the grey tom because he's everything she's ever known.

Familiarity is a comfort, but it's an old one.

And though she likes him, she doesn't understand his rules. There is an archaic fruit tree at the end of their garden, withered and tanned by a sun that is only ever pleasant in its heat. Perhaps it's age, the reason it only ever bears one rose-red berry, or maybe it's supposed to be kind of symbolic, in a way she doesn't yet understand. Smokefang glares at her, when she takes one step too close to the ancient tree, drawn by the soft glint of sunlight off ruby skin. When he pulls her back, as he always does- and assures her, always will- and reminds her of the third rule, how simply _easy _it is to follow it.

But she can't listen to him, because it's just a tree. Just a berry, smaller than her paw, with a cardinal gleaming wink. So she goes to it one day, leaving Smokefang napping in the sunlight. She reaches the foot of the tree, and suddenly, there's a face in front of her own. Slim, pale and reptilian, she recoils. The snake flicks its tongue at her, eyeing her with one bright blue eye.

"Pretty," the snake hisses, "aren't we?"

"Um," she says, backing up another step. "Sorry, I was just…"

"Just about to breaking the rules?"

Stubbornly, she says, "No. I'm allowed to look."

The serpent does something with its thin tongue and she realizes it's laughing. At her.

"Of course," it agrees, winding further down its perch; they're nose-to-nose- or whatever it is that snakes have on the ends of their faces, she supposes. She flicks her gaze upwards- its scaled tail is curled around the branch that holds the berry, the one that so attracts her. With its every movement, it drops lower, until she could touch it with her tail if she wants to.  
"You can taste, it too. Why follow the rules?"

She doesn't say it, but he knows. Because the grey tom at the end of the garden has dictated she shouldn't.

"There's more to life than rules, dear heart," the snake persists. "There's more to life than a garden."

Something snaps above her head, and the berry falls to the ground at her feet.

"Eat it," he says, mouth somewhere close to her ear. "It it will show you a world, dear one, a world without gardens."

"_Sablefrost_." His voice is a sharp crack, a snap that makes her want to wince. He's striding towards her, regarding the serpent in cold contempt.

"Let me show you the world." The serpent's voice is a lilt, a lullaby, a smooth compulsion. She bends and sweeps the berry into her mouth.

And the garden is gone.

* * *

**a drabble? pfft, what's that?**

**basically a garden of eden thing. replaced the apple with a berry, it's more fitting. i think we all know who the snake is.**


	36. Lady and the Tramp

For a house cat, she lives a relatively uncharmed life. Street life is sordid, and she dabbles in it. Gossips in alleys, flirts and teases wherever she can. She met him in an alley, on a balmy day in the shadows, him with his grin like mercury and miasma of charm that melts her heart, whenever she'll let it.

Unluckily for him, Rhydderch's reputation preceded him. Andraste knows what he wants- and it isn't her. He wants what she'll provide for him, the boost to his business she can give. He wants a mother, and he'll lock her up in a prison to make her one.

She refuses his advances, each time he comes at her with that easy, easy smile. She'll let him seduce her for a moment or two, and then she'll snap at him, bold digs about his family trade and his morals so rotten she can smell them a block away.

Each time it's a little to stop him where she does. She only has so much willpower, and he's wearing that away. The tramp is good at what he does.


	37. Noise

She's quiet, silent, deadly- everything she knows she will be. She's in the forest, because she has no idea what a city block looks like. Grey, she supposes, but the forest is anything but. The leaves above her head are green, the ones beneath her paws a crisp gold.

Morningkit is following someone. Following them without a sound, and it's not because she's lost. This cat ahead of her, they've got a sleek black pelt, but she hasn't yet seen its eyes.

The path winds and winds for a while, and she's noiseless. When the trail ends, they're on a cliff. The black cat turns to face her, but she's not surprised; she's resigned, and perhaps a little bit afraid. Because Morningkit is already everything she will become, and she knows she's supposed to kill the thing in front of her.

But she's cheated of the chance. The black cat turns, steps from the edge of the cliff into nothing. She falls without a sound, and Morningkit wakes in the noise of the nursery.


	38. Cold-Blooded

Results, he's always thought, are the cultivation of a good plan. So he plans her death, the precise moves he will take before the consummation of their dance, the moment he will touch her throat with his claws. He's heard she's beautiful, and gutting would be so messy.

He decides he'll be like smoke. She'll never touch him, will never lay a dainty golden paw on him, and for an impatient cat such as herself- her temper, of course, is legendary- that will anger her.

He doesn't let rage cloud his judgement. He got mad, got reckless once before. He prefers to forget about that, because although right now he's plotting murder, he's not as cold-blooded as the whispers say.


	39. Kneel

They're three days into the occupation of their territory, and they've already caught a bumbling old rogue. Only Brightstar insists they don't call him that- he's Tainted, she says, and they're the pure ones. They gather around him in the center of their camp- an old ravine they've found, soft and mossy and not entirely the home they were hoping for. They're all awkward, and everyone is looking at everything but the rogue on his knees. No one knows quite what Brightstar has planned.

She says something about StarClan. Something about blood and a bone-deep disease. Without ceremony, she guts the unlucky loner they stumbled across, and suddenly he's no longer kneeling.


	40. Password

Sablekit has found the best spot in camp, and she's not sharing. In fact, it's the grass behind the medicine den, all at once its smell perplexingly clinical and redolent. They're four moons old, barely, brother and sister and far too friendly with each other where all prying eyes are concerned.

He pounces at her, demanding her surrender. Sablekit has promised that the tiny grassy tunnel she's discovered is amazing, and he wants to see it. Why shouldn't he, when everything she sees, he sees? An exclusive litter of two- no one has ever told them that this is a lie, and no one ever will, they've lived and breathed the same life for moons.

"What's the password?" the black kit giggles, breathless.

This is the day before Thornstreak takes him away. He spends days, hours, puzzling over the password, until the day it becomes unimportant, until the day he forgets.


	41. Sharp

She thinks he's sharp- not his claws, not his sleek appearance, but in his mind. He sprung right out of the shadows, and made some ridiculous comment about how being 'scared out of her fur' was a real improvement on her looks. Her glare didn't faze him, didn't slid the quicksilver grin from his muzzle.

And then, this tom Arrah has known for five seconds, declares a heartfelt apology. He says she's beautiful, and he's Rhydderch. He touches her cheek with his nose, and the grey she-cat giggles. She knows he's sharp, a charmer, a tom fated to receive his every heart's desires. She falls for him anyway.

* * *

**RURRAH. it's official. reviews are love and life! or something**


	42. Prize

She was born to be bought. Bred to be sold, traded, used. She's cargo- pleasant on the eye, of course, but she's stock, a pretty possession. She doesn't know her father, and her mother's just a puddle of pliable silver fur. Nameless.

They take her from her when she's three moons old. They slap a name on her- Nausicaa- and shove her in the basement, where her pelt turns from mist to smoke in the dim light. Nausicaa is there for three more moons. She doesn't make friends, because they're all the same, a monotonous crowd, and she is just one of their many faces. But she's a pretty face, apparently, because two toms come to take her away. She's never been outside, and she inhales so deeply she chokes on smog.

They take her to a dilapidated old building, where the amount of cracks in the walls are only rivaled by the amount of cracks in the ceiling. They take her to a tabby tom kit, a ball of striped fluff that can't be any older than she is, and they tell her she's his prize, that, irreversibly, she has become his.


	43. Mystique

Theirs is an informal first meeting. Typically, no one meets in the middle of a battle. Precisely, they don't even meet- in the process of gutting some luckless city rebel, he catches her. She must have keen eyes, too, because he stands in shadow and is the colour of coal. Maybe it's his eyes. His eyes have always been too bright, mercurial in their liquid gleam. Instead, it's the silver of his eyes that halts the golden whirlwind, if only for a moment. In a flicker she moves, sees red again, and when she looks back the cat in the shadows has faded.

* * *

**bleh. take my crappy 1:30 a.m writing**


	44. Destroy

It's something within that destroys her, not an outside threat, not a power greater than herself. A rot that grows by the day; a blemish as black as she is gold. As blemish as dark as him, and darker than their intents intertwined. It's utter decimation. She's ruined, as the ruination of everything she has built lines itself up on the battlefield.

She won't run from a fight. It's not her way, even if she could run from the shadows inside herself. She will destroy herself beneath the hate of a faction before she lets that blight she hides inside show its ugly face to a world on a precipice.

* * *

**that could've been so much better. i don't know what i'm doing with my life.**


	45. 45 Pick Up The Pace

"Is that aaaall you've got?" Morningstar drawls. She doesn't even look winded. She doesn't even look dirty- but then again, Sablepaw is the only one busy making acquaintances with the ground.

Sablepaw sneezes out a lungful of dust; her only answer. Her mentor tilts her head and tsks.

"Pick up the pace," she demands, and rushes the small black apprentice again. She recognizes the move enough to slip to the left, but she's not prepared for the paw the leader sweeps under her legs.

Morningstar snaps, "Try harder." This time, Sablepaw is a little slower to her paws. They've been here all day, and there's a chill wind stirring the fringes of the clearing.

Sablepaw falls. She falls again. She's tackled; she's tripped; she's shoved and squashed. The critiques are the same- too slow, try harder next time.

So she throws one of the golden she-cat's tricks back in her face. She uses her foreleg to trip Morningstar, and it works for an instant. But the leader is able to turn even this into a battle maneouvre.

Sablepaw falls. Again.

* * *

**so, um, yeah. i suck at writing now apparently.**


	46. Popular

**language warning?**

* * *

He's too damn nice, so fucking friendly. She's acid inside, caustic to her very bones, and she has no doubt that he's a veritable trove of happiness down to his core. If you cut him, he'd bleed happiness.

It's impossible to deny that everyone likes him. He's popular, and he's gotten to everyone but her. She hates him like it's some kind of religion, like it's her duty. Like she's been sworn into service and vowed to loathe him with every inch of her gut.

She feels like she breaks her oath every time he makes some stupid joke that makes her smile. When he does or says something that amuses her, or when he catches her staring.

If it's a religion, her hate, then she's pretty sure that what she feels is sacrilege. Sometimes she admits to herself it's not him that she can't stand, it's the fact that she can't have him. He's popular, and he likes that, but she doesn't.

* * *

**sorry. don't even think this is Warriors. buuut it's what i wanted to write at 2 a.m.**


	47. Somehow

He convinced her, somehow, to flee with him. They ran, afraid at first, but when they collapse in a clearing so far beyond the fringe of anything they've ever known, paws bleeding, they're giddy. Sablefrost doesn't mind that they're intertwined, that they've just deserted everything they were raised to uphold. She had no friends there. She has her children, of course, but they'll be safe, and they still have a father even if they don't know it. Maybe one day they'll even understand.

She doubts that, because what kind of mother runs out on their children without a word, without a single goodbye?

Strongclaw curls tighter around her, as if he's sensing her inhibitions. As if she's about to leap up and run back, and he's the anchor that can root her where she lies. He doesn't know it, but she's tied to him. Fettered. If he fell, then she could only fall with him.


	48. Leaf

They fall before her eyes, leaves in autumn. The mighty tree, gnarled, twisted, groaning in the storm, shedding itself of the dead and dying. Azazel has heard so many stories of this tree, its dynasty, and now it is about to be felled. She's helping like she always knew she would. It's what she was bred for, born for, trained for.

There's no clear winner, just yet, only the evident losers with red smiles upon their throats.

* * *

**sorry it's short. seemed like a good place to leaf it.**

**hahaha.**


	49. Frighten

He scared her, when they first met. To be fair, it was easy to scare her then, when her nightmares bled into her waking hours and the darkness she'd just left behind still lingered in her pores. He was but a hulking shape in the darkness, intimidating, imposing.

It was funny; she'd never felt fear, until the night she answered a call at her door. She'd never been frightened before, and that was the lax reality of her life. Until she was dragged away and fear was the only thing that was ever certain. The one constant in her life.

But then he stepped out of the shadows, and his eyes were just as frightened as hers.

* * *

**just a little memory drabble**


	50. Full

He's full of it; full of himself and the arrogant sense that his pedigree is all that he'll ever need in this world. She's full of contempt; for him, for his unwanted intrusion into her humble life. And for a while, they're both filled with ideals, a purist passion. Until they figure out their cult is filled with flaws, brimming with them. They turn to each other, and they're empty, because what they've thought is not true. What they've breathed is the dust of unfounded beliefs. They breathe out, touch whiskers, and it takes a while, but they're full again, both full of each other.

* * *

sablestrong fluff, what else


	51. Answer

_Answer me_.

But he can't. There's no answers, no excuse. He can tell his mother what she least wants to hear, that he loved, that he would die for her. But it's too late. That's his plain answer, without embellishment, without flourish. He would've said it once, with all the sarcasm and snark he could muster. Now he says nothing, because his words fled with her. And maybe he'll find them again one day, and find his answer, but for now, Morningstar will have to settle for silence; for nothing. Strongclaw is a fool for ever thinking his mother will content herself with nothing.


	52. Remember

He imagines not, but remembers. These dreams are but fragments of reality, beautiful clarity, replay, rewind. Sorrelstorm would rather forget. It's a parade every night. The river whispers against his skin, cold, insidious. Silver and gold, the faces of tiny innocents. Her imperious demands and the silence from the stars. The worst moments of his life, traipsing past his eyes. Is there a pattern in his madness? In the morning, he barely remembers what he sees. But he knows it's there anyway.

His young prodigy will know one day. For now, the nightmares belong to Sorrelstorm.


	53. Nine

Brightstar was first, the callous revolutionary. Her predecessor is lean and wild, and darker than she imagined. Still, he is nothing yet. Third is small and unlearned, a little unhinged, but completely inappropriate to guide the Clan that festers. She is replaced quickly. Rather, she is _killed _quickly. Fourth is much better. He is a mix of wisdom and insanity; they balance each other out. Thornstar is a glimpse of what will come. He is followed by a brute of a cat, a strategist, a schemer, who builds the foundations of the Clan just a little bit better. He's not a radical, an inventor. He just plays on the work of others. Six lasts a long time. She's instated in her youth and her reign is a little on the quiet side. It's her daughter who replaces her; a beautiful tabby named Lakestar. PureClan prospers. In their eyes, she is a saint. By comparison eight is lacklustre, boring, dull. Oakstar was never meant to mean much. In the shadow of the glowing golden spark that is nine, he drowns.


	54. Thaw

She cannot pinpoint the moment she begins to thaw. It is a slow, glacial melt. The hoarfrost on her fur drips away. Those cold parts of her slip from her as water, so gently she does not even feel it. She is no longer a sculpture, no frozen statue. Smokefang drove the heat in her heart away, and turned her to glass. Strongclaw reignites it, in secrecy, in conspiracy. It's too bad she has to die, warm and broken in the meadow. Too bad he falls before he too can freeze. Too bad the one left knows only how to melt, how to thaw, but not how to disappear.


	55. Warm

p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;"Drusilla is an alley cat- prettier than most, granted, but she slums it with the rest of them. Her two brother dote upon her. She is brought the freshest rats, sips from the cleanest of puddles. At night she adheres to her personal custom of grooming her brilliant pale gold fur, over, and over, until it shines among the dirt and the rabble. Caligula keeps her innocent, untethered. She has an endless list of suitors, and he considers it his personal duty to hunt every one of them down. Tiberius stands by his shoulder and helps with a grin. She meets Achilleus despite their brotherly, thuggish devotion. She's a street cat, who has shivered in rain and snow and frost. She's sought shelter from the malignant sun and invasive heat. It is not until she mets Achilleus, however, that she knows what being warm is truly like./p 


	56. Minus

Simple math. Minus= to take away. Easy enough in equation, in theory. Yet when Smokefang finds himself minus Sablefrost's warmth, her dry humour, her love, it is not an easy weight to bear. Comprehension still eludes him. He was doing his job, like any normal PureClan tom. Duty. Keeping up appearances, so the both of them don't get killed. Sablefrost can't seem to understand- does she not do her job? Does she not practice her duty? Her pair is the leader's son, and she is one step from death.

Sablefrost moves into the nursery, and it then a matter of addition.


	57. Deadpan

p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;"emI love you/em, he says, and waits for the laugh. There's no possible way she will think this isn't a joke, not when he averages at least ten a day, when comedy is his crutch. Sablefrost has learned how to smile at his humour, now that it doesn't (often) offend her. Her breath catches, as she waits for the emjust kidding, eww/em or that infuriating smirk that will her he's not serious, that he's lied to her and expects her to laugh about it. Her green eyes look wide, and trapped, and he wonders if he should've told her at all. Strongclaw thinks there is perhaps time to fix this- to break out that grin. But he finds he can't. He's deadpan serious./p 


	58. Hushed

p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;"They keep quiet. It's essential to their relationship; to its survival, and to theirs. They don't speak during the day. They know this is wrong. It's what they've been taught, all their lives. Part of a newer, better generation, they are from some of the first litters born to the new and unsure PureClan, and they are brought up breathing hate. Poppyfall, perhaps aptly named, falls first. It's fated not to be, because they're both paired to other cats, but she can't hid her glances, her stares. Robinclaw notices, and then he meets her in the forest one day. He falls in return, for her beauty and grace. They keep it quiet, hushed. It's not enough because they are discovered, and they, traitors in a bright and righteous cause, are the first of the promising new generation to be put to death./p 


	59. Rose

They never know what to say to each other. Their fate now is unchangeable, or so Sedgewing thinks. Morningsong doesn't believe in permanent. Things will change, if she pushes hard enough; pushes with her claws. He knows she's beautiful, but he can't see the appeal. Morningsong is a rose, and her thorns are deadly. She doesn't like him much. He seems to get in her way too often. Her pair is her liability; she knows she was never meant to be restrained, and much less by this scrawny tom, but nothing lasts forever. He'll discover this, when he dies bloody and betrayed, pricked one too many times by her thorns. Nothing will last forever, except for perhaps the rose in the sun, a perfect shade of crimson.


	60. Grin

He knows she doesn't like him, and that makes him grin. Thornpaw is resolutely annoying, perpetually and frustratingly irritating. It's his art. The one thing he can never fail at is pissing Emberpaw off, which, if you ask her, is a pretty pointless talent. He puts her in this mood, this snappy, irate mood only he can bring out. She's cordial, most of the time, polite and dignified. Until he crosses her line of vision. Their pairing is inevitable, it it puts a frozen frown of displeasure on her face. When she glances at Thornstreak, however, he is all smiles.


	61. Undesirable

He feels disgusting, when they look at him. It's in their eyes, in the way Jayflight recoils a little when she sees him. Sablefrost avoids him altogether, although this is for an entirely different reason without absolute justification. He has some scars now, still bright and pink, and a few stubborn scabs that just won't heal no matter how many times Sorrelstorm slaps poultices on them. They're weeping red leers painted all over him. Smokefang makes Sablefrost sick, and Jayflight doesn't like to look at him, although she never says a word. She doesn't need to, however, for Smokefang knows just how undesirable he is.


	62. Gold

Sunkit often wonders if she's even related to her litter-mates. She's the brightest, purest of them, gold like the sun on water. Yes, Dawnkit is golden too, but she's darker, burnished like their mother. Littlekit is a tabby, and just as small as her; he's so boisterous he makes up for his lacking size. Willowkit towers over her, somber and silent, as though he's always sulking. Sunkit never sulks. Unlike her sister, she's unsullied by any markings. She's automatically Morningstar's favourite, her bright and perfect heir. As an apprentice, she learns she'd rather play in the meadow than catch prey, or practice fighting. She's no taste for blood, because that dark lust is taught, not hereditary. But she doesn't tell her mother.


	63. Aloof

Specklefrost has always been aloof when it comes to Sorrelstorm. He's hesitant to ask for herbs, the way she snaps. He's only a little younger than she is, but she seems classically timeless, rude in a way that feels like it belongs to older times. At first he believes she's that way with everyone, until tiny Whitepaw is forced into her tutelage. He can't help but seeing the gentle way she treats the young she-cat, mothering her despite the fact she is no longer a kit. And the apprentice is brilliant with herbs, in a way Specklefrost can never master. Whitepaw, small and pale, is ready for her test too soon. Sorrelstorm is not surprised when Specklefrost returns from the river alone, so he lets her shelter against his side, that haughty light banished from her eyes.


	64. Wasp

She watches Smokepaw with a decent amount of subtly, she thinks. Hiding in a bush is very subtle. He can't even see her. Sablepaw is hoping for as much, at least, but she considers herself pretty sneaky. It's a little hard to see what he's doing, with all the leaves her face. Otherwise, her plan is flawless. Smokepaw seems to be…tracking something? Hunting? _That's an attractive skill, in toms_, she thinks, inwardly pleased.

"I _can _see you, know," he calls. _Dumb. Now the prey knows he's stalking it. Honestly, toms. _He sticks his face into the bushes, until they're nose-to-nose.

"Oh," Sablepaw says, and giggles. Turns out 'decent subtlety' isn't really her forte. The grey apprentice smiles at her- then he recoils. She can't help but think he looks a little like the minnows Morningstar favours, grey, wide mouth gaping, as he flinches. With an easy grace he rears up and swats something out of the air, before landing to crush it beneath one strong paw.

"Sablepaw," he says, mock-serious, with a glance at the foliage above her, "next time, don't hide right below a wasp's nest, yeah?"


	65. Fly On The Wall

The proper term for what she is is 'spy'. It's the term she likes the best, anyway. There's no small number of things she could be called, only she is only ever called Emberpaw, or some variation of _hey, you, that apprentice over there. _She has one task, and it is to follow the deputy, Iceface. Her first assignment, instead of proper training. To be honest, she thinks he's a completely boring. But today she's been given the day off, and she can finally relax, while thinking about all the stock-standard apprentice knowledge she should possess right now. Emberpaw wanders idly through the canopy, until her gaze alights on a familiar grey pelt. Who should she encounter, of course, but the very cat she feels like avoiding. The black apprentice is about to turn away when she sees Morningstar approach him. She's no spy, when the leader decapitates her second-in-command, in a blaze of gore, just one very small, very meek fly on the wall.

* * *

**au**


	66. Swan

Swans are supposed to be elegant and beautiful, graceful creatures of the water. Swanpath has always felt like more of an ugly duckling. Awkward, without composure, graceless. She supposes her parents have a certain irony about them when it comes to picking names- her sister, apprentice medicine cat, is no bright spark. Sleetclaw, an average and ordinary tom, has never assuaged her self-doubts. That only enforces her beliefs. He's not allowed to love her, but he can at least tell her she's beautiful, right? Swans are beautiful and sleek; she grows thinner and weaker with every litter she births, and she comes to realise that yes, she is no swan; she's just a mess.


	67. Miasma

There's a subtle stink here, a heady miasma. The warehouse is barren and broken, slated for deconstruction at an unspecified date. Miss, of course, doesn't know this. She's not really into real estate. She's just a cat, after all. It smells so devoid of life, so stale she can't help but be attracted to it. It's a miasma all the same, vaguely repellent and distantly related to the smell- blood and lifelessness- of the cave she was entombed in. She can ignore it, she thinks, because although one of her former friends- from her old life, that is- has offered her her human's attic for her base of operations, it's not entirely suitable. This warehouse however seems perfect, empty, barren (_smelling so familiar, it hurts) _so she turns to Emory with a shrug and says, "We'll take it."


	68. Sink

_What's that? What does that do? Oooh, what's that? _Her questions are endless, and it makes him want to smile, except for…well, you know what.

"That's a fridge, love," he answers dutifully. "That's a sink." Ru's not in the habit of feeling guilty, but there's this strange feeling in his stomach, almost as if… Almost. If. She is round and silver and resplendent, and he lies to her beautiful face. Not about the sink, though. That part is true. It _is _a sink.

"This way, sweetheart," he tells her. He herds her. They enter a dark room, and he feels it's the last time they will truly be together, equal and unfettered. Is Rhydderch sad? _Almost. _He puts her in a cage, and she trusts him, fragile naivety in her eyes. "You'll be safe here, Arrah," he says, and this statement is pretty much true. He locks her up, and that innocence in her eyes seeps away, replaced by confusion and perhaps, if he cared to look hard enough- which he doesn't, why would he- hurt. He just turns around; Rhydderch has done his job. _If…_

* * *

**my fav **


	69. Snow

"Damn," she spits, spilling into the snow. She was trying to avoid this, because Brightfern hates the cold. She is a newly-minted warrior, shiny and hesitant with lack of use. They sent her out to hunt, of course. _Send the disposable one. Send the one that doesn't complain_, she thinks bitterly. And now she's lying in the snow, beyond the fringe of trees, and her mouse- her tiny, pathetic mouse- is gone. It wasn't much more than a mouthful, but its loss annoys her.

"It's not safe out here," a voice announces. "A little thing like you, you'll catch your death."

She springs up to face a complete stranger. He smells foreign, and Brightfern doesn't trust him. "What's it to you?" she asks, jutting her chin out at him. He's damnably attractive, with inky black fur and wide amber eyes.

"Well," he starts, charmingly, "I couldn't sit here and watch such a pretty cat such as yourself freeze to death without so much as a _warning_."

Brightfern smiles at the flattery. This is the start.


	70. Polite

**human au. piper= sable theo= strong**

* * *

Piper is very polite when they bump into each other, on their first day of school. Theo, by comparison, is a wild thing. He accepts her apology with a devilish little grin and tears away, and Piper wonders if it was _him _that knocked into _her. _As the days pass into weeks, and reluctantly into years, she's certain he initiated contact. _Rude_. Piper remains proper and polite, a prim thing, studious and scholarly. Theo, however, is so far removed from academic life she suspects he wouldn't even be able to see it with a microscope. Then again, she knows for a fact he failed BIO202, so microscopes are a little beyond him.

They bump into each other two years after they finish school (she was surprised he hadn't dropped out). She's still polite; inherently, it seems. He's a little less wild, but it's the same Theo she's tried hard not to know, submerged in a life that completely passed Piper by. She doesn't see him again after that. She just doesn't like him very much.


	71. Dream

She dreams.

_But she's dead, isn't she?_

Dreams in colour, in bright and hazy kaleidoscopes, splashes of rainbow spectrums, and, of course, red. Dreams of her mother, soft and benign.

_Dead among the flowers._

There's no pain in her dreams, just what she once cherished. One eye is blue, one is is gold...she can't decide which she'd rather kill.

_Melting into the earth, no doubt._

Her father, uncharacteristically worried. She isn't sure why, until that voice comes back, adhering to its particular schedule, telling her she's dead. Why yes, she knows she is. Certainly. Until she wakes up, and gone are her colours.

_You are dead. You are buried and gone and dead. You have died. You're dead..?_

But the pain in her lifts its lazy head, and it says _no._


	72. Eyes

Her eyes are her lineage. They're her mother's eyes, her sister's, her aunt's, her grandmother's. Perhaps her green eyes can be traced far up her muddled family tree, but dead cats don't stare; not at Emberpaw, anyway. Her brother doesn't share her eyes. They're polar opposites, flame and water. And her eyes, forest-emerald, are a weakness. Her mother fell. Her sister will. Her aunt fell, like an angel into her cage. Her grandmother did, a long time ago, despite herself. Falling is her heritage. It's in her blood, in those wide green eyes. When she climbs, she tries so hard not to fall.


	73. Future

They lie together, and whisper of their future. Their future lies in the swell of her stomach. Their future has two diverging paths in one rotting house, but he won't yet tell her that. They spin a bright vision together, living in some quant copse of trees, perhaps, raising their children together and laughing at their antics. Everything he tells her is a lie, every word a falsehood. It's in his nature, to ensnare someone like her. To capture her trust, for she gives it so willingly. He lies to her with his silver tongue; she's wrong, but he won't tell her. Arrah has no future at all.


	74. Blizzard

This storm is much worse than anything she's seen. By comparison, the thin dusting of snow she encountered (reluctantly) last year seems pathetic. And yet she's out here anyway, all in the name of something undefinable, and wonderful. Brightfern comes here every moon, just once, just to see him. It's special tonight. She's a queen, and she just innately knows- _tonight _is the night. She makes it into their cosy den easily enough, although she's windblown and covered with snow. She hates the cold, but she endures it for him.

Birchbreeze's name is on the tip of her tongue all night, until she kits alone. The tiny thing that lies deformed and twisted in front of her is silent, making not a sound as it slithers into the world. Brightfern is almost repulsed, but she's frantic. It won't move. It doesn't breathe, but she pleads. And then she pleads for him to come to her, like he always has. She waits all night, hollow and grieving, until it becomes apparent she's not worth braving a storm. She's not worth a little snow, a little wind. She is not loved after all, and she nearly breaks her claws burying her little dead daughter. This isn't the end. It's barely started, after all.


	75. Ring A Bell?

He appears in front of Caligula like a ghost. He should be a ghost, but Drusilla died for him, so he is not. He is very much flesh, but he will not bleed tonight. Caligula snarls as he recognises him. Achilleus has something of a common face; he's lanky and his fur is black, like two thirds of the alley cat population. But there is no way to forget the face you hate. Achilleus knows that himself. He sees Caligula and Tiberius in every dream. They're spectres who haunt him, but tonight, they will truly die.

"Name's Achilleus," he says smoothly, as the small gang freezes. "Ring a bell?" Yes. It does, indeed.


	76. Mend

Toadpaw tries to fix her, he does. His sister is a mad one- is he the only one to see it? He catches her one day, skinning a minnow alive as it thrashes in claws streaked silver.

"Morningpaw," he says, and she looks up, scowling.

"Don't talk to me," she snaps. He knows he's not supposed to, but his golden sister has a heart of shadows. He just wants to help.

He will see that there's no way to mend Morningpaw. This realisation takes a long time to come to him. She grows wilder and wilder, but he's sure it's not irreversible. Just like his sister, the concept of permanent is a theory to him. He dies while raiding the city, the first casualty in years. And as he fades, he thinks he sees just the slimmest flash of gold, and perhaps she whispers goodbye, or maybe his mind is deluding him, because he failed her.


	77. Spine

Having a spine is a new experience for her. But since her imprisonment and her wild escapade, she's grown a backbone, surprising even herself. She's not sure why she ends up back in the city, but it's the only place she knows, and even the shadiest backstreets are a fair sight more welcoming than that gloomy pit she crawled from.

"Hey, doll," a voice says, saccharine and syrupy. She turns to face its owner in the dim street lighting, showing the extent of her scars, which refuse to heal- just like her dreams, which refuse to forget. "Why don't you come along with me?" His eyes scan her scars, then return to her eyes, all the while he grins boldly. He's a thick-furred tabby, sleek and solid. She, however, has not eaten for a week.

"No," she snaps at him, that new spine of hers kicking into action.

He shrugs. "Fair enough. Name's Emory."

She just stares at him, supposing she's supposed to offer her name in return. Maybe she would, if she still had one.

And though she now has a spine, which she likes fairly well and all, she goes with him anyway. The rest will be history.


	78. Whimsical

"Good boy," Morningstar cooes. "Laugh it off." Strongclaw could laugh anything off. Nothing escapes his humour. He could make a joke, no matter what. _He's damn hilarious_. But he's at a loss, staring at her body as she coughs out her life, gives him this faint and gruesome smile. _Why is she smiling? Did he make a joke? _But he didn't. His mother breathes down his shoulder. This isn't funny. He wants to take it back. Let him take it back, please; she's the only thing he loves, oh, StarClan.

Morningstar laughs merrily, whimsically. Strongclaw vowes he'll never laugh again.

* * *

**sorry for the spam of drabbles. just got internet back**


	79. Smoke

He is, for a moment, smoke. His breath, his hair, the fabric of him, that curious composition of gas and water and addiction. The taste of it is thick, a layer of him, bitter mortality and ceremoniously cremated tobacco. The smoke clears, misty blurred edges of him gone, and he's Theo again, beauty in the way he breaths out his soul in contraband. Piper hides from him, and watches him, concealed behind tinted glass, for she can't stand the reek of smoke. There's an irony to his bad habit; she has always considered him to be something of a pest, and now here he stands slouched with a cigarette in his mouth, as though to ward himself off, to smoke himself out of his den and into his death. Piper always smiles a little at irony.


	80. Bruise

He grows on her like a bruise; hidden, sore to touch, easily forgotten with a little distraction. They live in a softer world, where he does not dream of being king, and she holds no lofty ambitions, and there are no laws to govern them. Nettle is beautiful; Pepper is a little plain, just a regular tabby, but his smile is blinding and happy. They live in proximity, and that's how Pepper attaches himself, slow and sly. Things could've been different; he was meant to posses her, and she was meant to hate him. But they're born in a manner of mercy, and he is a bruise that will not fade.


	81. Crust

There's a scab on her, that crusted wound, the corpse of her imperfection. She's never liked her spots. They sully her, somehow, make her less gold, less bright. They distract from her brilliance. Morningstar, of course, has never accepted anything less than perfect; not even her own parents were excused. She enjoyed the look on her apprentice's face as that flaw was ripped from her body. She savoured it. It was a lesson, after all. Perhaps Sablepaw ought to follow suit.


	82. Loose Cannon

Skah is a wild one. He was, perhaps, destined for a forest somewhere, with those terrible eyes of his. They aren't ugly; they're kind of beautiful, mismatched blue and green. But they're cold, and they're cruel, and it's easy to see why he winds up at Tillman's. He came from the streets once, a dirty wretched thing that looked more brown than white. Rhydderch found him while doing his rounds. He regrets it, but Skah was a flatterer, a sycophant, and at the time, it worked. Now he's an unprofessional tyrant. He's a wild, white loose cannon. And then he disappears.


	83. Badger

The news of a badger in the territory pleases Peppermask greatly. It's not that he's particularly fond of the animal, but he, with his lofty ambitions, has a plan. None of the Clan are worried about the badger. They're a team, jagged and ill-fitting, but the badger will be in shambles against their brilliance.

He hunts the ugly creature down. It's easy; it's not as though it tries to hide, and it reeks. Peppermask has never seen a badger before, but he has to say, he's disappointed. It's a small measure of arrangement, of baiting and luring. He waits in the trees, unaware he's picking up the habits of his estranged niece. It doesn't take long, and he has timed it to perfection- the badger is just waking up, and she is curious, because he has done his job well. The badger surges out, but she is not surprised. She leaps on its back, reaches around and slits its fat throat. The badger stumbles and slips, Morningstar step gracefully from its back. Her movements are serene, her face furious. She throws back her head and howls. Peppermask runs, and falls, and runs.


	84. Head Over Heels

The sound of her voice and the sleekness of her pelt invokes first a crush. That crush inspires a barrage of insults, slurs, innuendos that he is infinitely proud of- summoning that kind of genius isn't easy. And that crush stays for a little while, despite the doctrine that is shoved down his throat. When does it escalate? That stay in the storm, he thinks, when he realizes he is in too deep, and he can't move his legs. It's up to his chest, his chin, as she laughs at him. When he kills her in the meadow he is head over heels, and he is shattered. He won't put himself back together again.


	85. Dud

Emory doesn't tell anyone, but he is a dud. He was bred and raised for a nobler purpose. He stood to inherit not a gang, some mangy collective of cats, but an empire. He was a general, a prince. He's not from her city, but he visited sometimes, taking a stroll through the poorer district and trying to ignore the stink. Emory was meant to govern with his siblings, to squabble pettily and and run the empire into the ground. But he can't do it. He is eloquence, he is grace, he is cowardice. He runs. He finds her. And the prince wants to leave her, this scarred nameless oddity. He doesn't, but he is not bravery, he is not a dud. He becomes something else.


	86. Analyse

He watches her from the nursery. She is sleek, dark-furred and graceful, and her narrowed green eyes whisper promises. Strongkit is but three moons old, mostly fluff, with a little round stomach not quite proportionate to the rest of his body. He will shrug it away, one day. Not yet. Sablepaw is a thing of beauty. Strongkit analyses her elegance every day. She gives him suspicious glances in return, and even the wariest attention she gives him thrills him. This tiny thing doesn't know what love is, really. He's arrogant and self-assured, born with a pedigree. He is but three moons old, and he wants to possess her. Not yet.


	87. Immaculate

**three-shot drabble. au, separate from Polite. piper= sable dante= smoke theo=strong**

* * *

She looks…well, she doesn't look perfect. There's that tiny gap between her front teeth, that one that seems to get bigger and bigger the more she looks at it. Her eyes are too weirdly green, her hair too black for her pale skin. Piper likes her dress, at least; it's sea-foam green, to match her eyes, lace sleeves and a lace back. She wears her hair in an elegant pile atop her head; her sister did it for her, because she's hopeless at attempting anything that is not a ponytail. But it's a special occasion, after all. Piper wasn't sure if she was even going to prom, but Dante asked her, and she had to say yes. She doesn't look perfect, no. At least she can say she looks kind of immaculate.

Dante picks her up, handsome in his black suit, his brown hair tied back for once. They go to their prom, and they dance. He towers over her, and she smiles at him, ignoring that tiny monstrous gap between her front teeth.

"Hey, excuse me for a minute," Dante says, untangling her hands. He disappears through some door- for a smoke, perhaps, and she doesn't blame him. Not much, anyway.


	88. Dawn

When does it dawn on her, that he's not coming back? She tugs at anxiously at her pretty green dress, the one she very nearly couldn't afford. Dante stood her up. _At prom_.

"Piper," someone says, placing a warm hand on her elbow. She looks up, and sees it's Theo. Her mood plummets even further, and she wrestles her arm out of his grip. "Piper, are you okay?"

"Leave me alone," she spits, stalking away from him. She's going to find Dante. He lost track of time (and track of cigarettes, of course). She finds the door Dante left through, and slips through. Dante's there, of course, his arm slung around pretty blonde Aubrey. They disconnect their faces long enough for them to get into a taxi, the yellow light of the car angelic on their perfect faces. Dante doesn't see her. Did he ever? Tears are in her eyes- angry tears, wretched tears, salt and scorn. She takes off her shoe and throws it at the taxi as it drives away, and Piper ignores how horribly she misses.

The sound of the door behind her startles her, and she hastens to wipe the tears from her face, three commonplace words, and four very rude ones, brimming on her tongue. "Shit, Piper, are you okay?" Theo asks again. And she nearly says those words, very nearly. But she doesn't. She cries all over his nice tuxedo jacket instead, the one he can afford to replace ten times over.


	89. Trouble

It's cold outside. She has no jacket, and her flimsy dress was made for the heat of dancing. Theo's a radiator, but she still shivers in his arms. He's still attempting to mumble soothing assurances in her ear. Yes, she's always found _Dante's a dick _to be a calming sentiment. How did he know?

Piper pulls away from him, feeling suddenly disgusting. She's sure her face is red and her eyes are swollen, and on top of that, there's an acute headache building behind her eyes, the one that always accompanies her tears. She looks away from Theo, embarrassed. She knows he's handsome- there's not a girl in school who doesn't- and right now, she's a mess. His hand is on her arm again.

"You know you can do better than him, right?" She thinks of Dante, his dark hair, his charcoal eyes. He always smells of smoke, and he said that he loved her. Will she ever get better than that?

"Who?" Piper snorts. She looks at him now; he's already staring at her. She pleasantly surprised to see he doesn't look the least bit intoxicated. "You?" Theo's made it know secret that he wants to get into her pants. He voices the fact almost daily, actually.

Theo's fingers slip down her arm until he's holding her hand. "Come with me he says," and tugs her along. Piper has that awkward limp born of wearing only one shoe; a heel, no less. Absurdly, this makes her laugh, and she tells Theo to wait a minute. He lets her hand go as she bends down to remove the sole survivor.

"Hey," Theo says, blue eyes suspicious, "where did your other shoe go?"

"Somewhere," Piper says. She's not sure on the specifics.

They go to the beach. It's ten minutes away, and eerie in the dark. It's a rocky beach, and the waves are loud against the stone. Theo stops, and hands her something gritty and cold. She throws into the ocean and the wind whips at her dress; he hands her another, and another, and the fresh sting of rejection is more than enough to convince her that Dante is more trouble than he's worth.

* * *

i crack myself up


	90. Aristocat

This time, she is born into a pedigree. She never knows mud, and dirt, and enemies. This time, she is still born gold and beautiful, and this time, she is governed by no law. She is treasured, petted, spoiled. Morningstar never exists, and in her place is something softer, a snarky aristocat who never fails to get what she wants. Her purr is her weapon this time, not teeth nor claws, although she deigns to use them on the birds in her garden. This life is sleek and easy. She doesn't like it. She was never meant to be idle and complacent, in this life or others. She leaves one day. She goes to the forest where there are rumours of strange cats. She dies.


	91. Lion

In the moment he dies, he is a lion.

He wakes up ordinary, and he organizes his broken pieces, and he stands up. His organization skills are a little poor, and the edges shine through his fur, line his steps, become his jagged crown. This has been his normal for seven months, silent and ceaseless, where he is a shell nursing hollow laughs and unborn words. It's been an eternity since she died, jaded countless days a monotonous flash, and he spends them counting the ways she smiled and the way she talked; he cultivates her memories, and in this way, she lives more than he does.

The river's voice is a siren's call. His mother's favourite weapon. He steps in, because he just wants to see her, and he is brave as he drowns; lion-hearted, made small in the infinity of death.


	92. Sunset

It's his final night in the city, and the guards let them sit out and watch the sunset. Elettra is quiet, and Thad is not here to fill their silences. It is tense, but not awkward. She leans on his shoulder and the sky bleeds above them. Cariad has never wanted to freeze a moment more than he does now, not even when he left Khia, desolate in the dark. It's suddenly very clear he could die. He is not infallible, although he has been reassured that his death at their hands is 'very unlikely.' When they go inside, it is dark, and he leaves a few hours later.


	93. Off The Hook

That first night in the cage is not the loneliest. It's a chill that's slow to build, a dense and laborious accumulation of her resentment and betrayal, and each night she thinks it can not be worse, and then each night it is. It's not just Rhydderch she hates, but herself, her sweet shattered naiviety, the ghost of her that was a fool. But mostly that tom, his mercury grin, his gold voice, his shadow long and grim as he walked away and left her. Arrah knows, as she simmers beneath the surface with all that she feels and all that she cannot control, that she will never let him off the hook. Forgiveness is too good for a thief.


	94. Beast

Emory returns to the city, and he hides. He was handsome once, before the forest creatures turned their wild claws to him, and now, he is just scarred. He is of a noble heritage, but he does not seek out his family. He's dead to them, and he doesn't need any confirmation. They would only shudder at the hideous thing he has become; this beast of bare flesh. He hides away in shadows and seclusion, until he's discovered in an abrupt anticlimax. She, moonlight and metal, peers down at him as he hunches in his nest. She does not recoil from the beast. She will love him, instead.

* * *

au where emory was caught and not Miss


	95. Dashing

Theo makes her catch her breath; this surprises her. He's never given her reason for pause before- not at his class clown comments in class, and not when he offered her this, this second chance at the average schoolgirl's long anticipated dream. He wears a suit, and he looks dashing, in a way she never noticed at that ill-fated prom. She feels plain in comparison, in her once-worn dress, her hair down, her mascara surely smudged. Something soft and sweet plays low in the background. He had offered his house, which no doubt had its own glamorous ballroom. His parents were out of town, he said, for the whole weekend, and for once he was not generously hosting another raucous party.

"Every girl needs her night," Theo said, when he cornered her up against her locker on Monday morning. She'd rather forget the catastrophe she'd left behind, but the eager insistence he'd offered up when he suggested he could be her second date was nothing she had the heart to refuse.

"You look beautiful," says Theo, taking her by the hand. She forgets to tell him he's handsome, but he already knows it.

* * *

return of the prom au


	96. Irritate

"What's gotten your fur in a twist, Sablepaw?"

"Him," she grunts at Nettlepaw, staring daggers at the ground. He's an irritance beyond words, a sleek pest with a pedigree, and when he sees her , he can't resist; teasing taunting, blatant harassment and she will scream if he doesn't stop. She didn't ask for this, but she's irritated anyway.

He sits and smirks across the clearing. He's small and handsome. His humor is dry, and dirty, and dark (but this he does not give voice to). His jokes remain shallow. She considers him a plague, and wonders what she ever did to deserve his vacuous torture.

* * *

take it i don't want it


	97. Ant

She is an ant. He looks at her, and thinks she doesn't know it yet, that she is one of a multitude, one more leaf lost into the forest, a snowflake buried in the snow. Emberpaw is a minion, and she thinks she's unique. Strongclaw could tell her she's just another replica. She is a shadow of her mother, as her mother was for her grandmother. A legacy of shadows, he thinks, and he wishes he was so much more intimate with that feeling. He himself was some kind of mistake. He was not the offspring Morningstar had hoped for. He wishes that he were an ant too. And then, maybe, as ants they could talk.


	98. Hold Your Tongue

Pinepaw is far too chatty. His mouth never stops moving, and over the amount of noise he makes, he can't seem to hear how annoying he really is. Sorrelstorm has adjusted to quiet solitude over a peaceful period of several months. For example, he would right now like to be organising herbs into a tidy pile.

"Shut up," he grunts at his apprentice, but he takes no notice and keeps talking about what his sister ate for lunch last week. Morbidly, he wonders if this constant chatter is worse than the silence.


	99. Sneeze

She hides, and she shivers. Fragmented behind a layer of leaves, the cat sniffs the air; even from this distance, its eyes are wide and blue, and predatory. She has been a prisoner of theirs for months, locked away in a dank earthy vault below ground, a cavern that reeks of misery and lingering death. They took her out today, two towering frightening beasts that dragged her from the dark, although these are no heroes, no saviour. Expressionless, they broke her legs, and then her spine, and left her to die bleeding in this forest. Only now they're hunting her, and she must stay quiet, because she trusts not at all that dark hunting glint in the young stranger's eyes. He is not here to hunt birds.

The pressure is building behind her nose. She can't help it; she sneezes, and when she opens her eyes again, the young tom is right in front of her, a smirk fading from his lips. One of the beasts from before strolls into the clearing and congratulates him. He is still staring at her when her throat is cut, when she is broken just one last time.


	100. Swing

She provokes in him a certain feeling. Theo is good with words; what good is a comedian who can't speak? He still can't find a way to describe what happens to him when she walks past, when her eyes slide over him in the hallway, when she talks in class and he is there to hear her voice. He can't drown it out when he smokes. Alcohol won't chase it away, and it remains somewhere between his heart and his stomach, swinging there, slow and tempting, getting a little heavier whenever she looks at him. He still can't tell her. He has no words she wants to hear.


	101. Tree

She is not as smart as she thinks. Ah, she thinks how high and mighty she is, as she scurries through the canopy. She is not; she has merely climbed above the rest of the rabble for a few meaningless moments. But she'll be back again. He has seen her pattern, her system of operations. She is quietly convinced of her genius. But he sees her- loves her, even, as one of his own and as something slightly other- and he knows this is not true. Knows that time is winding wearily down until her fated fall, because Emberpaw will never be as clever as she hopes.

* * *

it's truly amazing what i can achieve during maths


	102. Gruesome

She is a hellish sight as she breaks, but he is a worse picture to look at. He is hollow and void and terrible as he kills her, and he can't manage it fast enough. His own blood is on him, and he limps, and for a moment he thinks she'll win. He nearly lets her. He doesn't know why he can't. Doesn't understand why he will not let himself die, and let her live. He makes a mistake. In that moment he wants to die more than he wants her to live.

Oh, God, that awful smile. It's gruesome.


	103. Hate

He hates the very thought of her. Of course, that's all he has left, happy memories and hollow thoughts. Because she's dead and her blood is still on his paws, and he can't touch it and he can't wash it off and he can't let go, either.

She's done this to him. Taken him apart, and he can't quite figure out how all his pieces are supposed to line up, but it's not this way. Not that way. Not any of the ways he tries, and so he gives up, and shuns her memory. He hates her as much as he loves her, curses as he prays. He haunts his old haunts, and smiles his familiar old smiles, because he hates her, and it all comes to him so easily now.


	104. Support

She hates the feeling of falling, so she holds on to all she's got left. Inconveniently, all that remains is Theo, but he is her steady support. She needs it most when she sees Dante strolling through the halls, perfect Aubrey surgically attached to his arm. This is not a fairytale of her imagining.

And only Theo seems to care, but she can't guess at his motives; they're always hidden behind a smoke of his creation, the scent of tobacco thick and sluggish in the air. She finds it so hard, that he speaks to her only in riddles of reassurance and derisive remarks. That the golden boy speaks only in his tones of gold. That when he speaks, nothing real comes out.


	105. March

They march off to their death, and it is a pretty picture. Domino soldiers, soon to discover the extent of their invincibility. Their confidence is a fallacy, their training a waste. They are led by the grey one, who is not as broken as she thinks. They are to discover there are yet more ways to break, and break they will, before they die in lines of hopeless infantry. The enemy waits smiling because, oh, how they love a challenge; bone, blood, mettle.

They march away, but from here they can only fall.


	106. Discover

He discovers he has no friends. It's after she dies, and he realizes he talks to no one else, has devoted his life to nothing else but her. In hindsight, it was a poor investment to make. His hours stretch out in lonely infinities, interrupted only by his mother with her feral grin.

He's truly a pariah now, an outcast, refused both exile and death. It is a numbing experience, to be so alone, although in truth it is a self-inflicted wound.

Strongclaw wishes the world was a little less full of discoveries.


	107. Swelter

The warmth of the day rises restlessly, stagnant and bleached, through the trees. They've just finished the annual complaining about the cold and as such, it's time to start bitching about the heat. Sablefrost fixes firm on her face her mask of perfected discontent. It's had a lot of use recently.

Strongclaw peers at her, tail slowly stirring the dirt. "I don't think this heat is good for the babies," he announces suddenly, and she just sneers at him.

"This heat isn't good for anyone," she snaps at him. She is lying stretched on her side, hoping to dispel her discomfort by the application of evenly distributed bodyweight. It does nothing to flatten the discernible bulge of her stomach. And yet Strongclaw cons her into getting up and staggering through the forest to the river. She simply lies on the bank, for once in her life grateful for mud, while her pair wades in serenely, some aquatic adaptation within him attracted to the water. Strongclaw splashes water at her, but Sablefrost only hisses at him.

"What?" he laughs, innocently. "Don't you know how to swim?"


	108. Alluring

She must admit there's a certain allure to the forest tom. She's never met anyone like him before, never fought anyone his equal. He is gruff and charming and callous. She laughs, though he doesn't try, yet she is still so afraid of him. The wildness never leaves his eyes, and it remains coiled in his muscles, clutched close to his heart. And he would have killed her, she knows, without a second thought, relishing it all the while. Perhaps this is the allure; the dance with death, a slow and ceaseless seduction. The thrill of the chase; she revels in it, and loves the way she runs, like a mouse from a hawk, but she will be caught. This is just another hunt for him, the beast who flees from nothing, who has known nothing but the chase. He can't wait to catch her.

* * *

lookit, a drabble

ya she still does this. well she tries.


	109. Pond

In his dream, there's a pond. It always the same dream; the quiet forest, the sleepy glen, the pond. It is a perfect circle, a flawless mirror, and yet when he approaches he can never find his reflection. Just as well; his pelt is muddy, tangled, adorned with small additions of twigs and burrs. Strongclaw was once a proud cat, and groomed his fur until it gleamed. That ended the day he ended _her_, and after that all he could see was the blood, a perpetual red stain upon his paws. Washing it away isn't possible; it's his mind that's broken, not his eyes.

Tonight in the pond something waits for him. Strongclaw does not gasp when he looks down; it's something inside that fails, that crumbles just a little more. It's her, of course, but the creature in the mirror is not what he remembers: bitter, angry, glaring.

"Let me go," he whispers; the pond phantom throws back her head and laughs. It is a musical sound, derisive and pretty. He'd forgotten her scorn, her sarcasm. It's too much to hope that in time, he will forget the rest of her.

* * *

to the guest who wants to know where i get my prompts from, i picked them all myself and put them in an ordered list, 1-365. now i have to suffer through them. not sure how i'd get them to you unless you made an account or whatever.


	110. Third Time's The Charm

**DID SOMEONE SAY RETURN OF THE PROM AU**

reminder: piper is sable, theo is strong, dante is smoke

language warning + cuteness +real awkward

* * *

The first kiss is a mess. More specifically, Piper is a mess. She's drunk and emotional, and it's never a good mix. She blames it all on Dante, that arrogant insufferable prick. He's playing at conjoined twins again with Aubrey; it's a slightly incestous game, considering that his lips are reluctant to leave hers. But it's his sister hosting the party, and, though it's completely dismal and sad, Dru is her only real friend. Piper goes, and hoards all the alcohol she can find. Theo finds her an hour later, when she's just a mellow pile of badly organised emotions.

"Piper, you're a wreck," he says, grinning broadly at her as he untangles her fingers from the vodka bottle. "A fucking trainwreck." Still, he sits down beside her and takes a swig, though the liqueur is too warm to be pleasant. Piper leans on his shoulder, reaching limply for the bottle that just eludes her grasp.

"Please…" she whines. Normally, she's far above begging, but the sight of Dante sucking face with Straight A Aubrey can only be washed away with raw spirits. And it happens like that; a twitch of her head, a twitch of his, an awkward sideways collision that Theo does not quite reciprocate. She pulls back, and leaves a small shiny trail of saliva on his lower lip.

"Sorry," Piper whispers, after a moment, and she is; she never imagined her first kiss would turn out like that, so sad and dismal and lonely, so accidental, so _Theo_. She was never meant to chase him; after all, she is the one who always runs away, without fail.

Then her father has his accident, and the seat belt nearly strangles him; after that, he can barely speak, and he doesn't leave the house. It's a pity kiss, really; Theo was only trying to ask if she was okay. The school bell has rung, and the students have all trickled away, and she is failing at shoving her books into her overflowing locker. There must be something in her face; her red-rimmed eyes, her pallid skin a vocal declaration of her hysteria. Piper's always hated crying, and now she hates that he, of all people, is the one to see her do it.

"It all gets better," he murmurs to her, as she spins to face him. "Trust me." And she should, because she guesses he knows better than anybody. But she doesn't have it in her; can't find a part of her that takes comfort in his words.

"He's not _dead_," she snaps, but this is where the conversation dies. Theo initiates it; a small, soft peck, so far from the awkward drunken clash of their first romantic encounter. Her lips are chapped. His aren't, but his breath smells of smoke anyway. It isn't perfect; she hates the taste of cigarettes.

After that, there are near-misses, awkward almosts, a game of evasion and avoidance. Piper can only remember the clumsiness of the first two, and she doesn't trust their tentative friendship to survive another.

The third time, she is prepared, and the ashy reek of smoke is gone. It's Theo's birthday, and they hide from his discordant parents. It's not hard, in his sprawling home estate, and so they tuck themselves away the garden undisturbed, plates piled with cake (she tells herself she's there because she loves cake, nothing more). It's a perfect, balmy day, blue sky streaked with tiny clouds and overtures of romance. Third time's the charm, they say, and so she falls under its spell. Its spell and his lips and his mint breath. After, as her lips tingle and her blush grows, they eat their cake in solitary mirth. She fucking loves cake.


	111. Scatter

In another world, Peppermask is luckier. Perhaps it is only that Morningstar is weaker, in this dimension that never dawned, but he kills her anyway, her blood a spray of sweet surrender. And then he tries to hold them together, these bitter souls, warriors loyal to a corpse, and he never learned how to lead. They scatter to the wind, because word has it an army is marching over the horizon and they, zealots, are nothing without the commands of the golden one. Peppermask is the first to die, and now he is not so lucky, not so strong; it's not the waiting wilderness that gets him but rather Morningstar's thugs who, dumb as they are, make this one choice for themselves. And then they run.

Miss arrives and finds the ashes of a dynasty, a kingdom felled. Side-by-side, two bodies lie in the meadow, the only offering PureClan could afford to make. Killer and victim, tabby and gold, a hopeless appeasement. They are never buried.


	112. Stain

There's a stain on the ground, in front of his nose, faint and pale, a shadow of its former filth. He knows this particular stain very well; he's stared at it for many hours, as if a cat like him could feel sad. Helpless. The anger was immediate, of course, but when that left him guilt was the only thing to fill its hollow vacancy. Of all spots in this desecrated alley, Caligula would rather not be lying here, but his broken legs are slightly problematic, a small inconvenience. Many of his gang are dead, gutted as they slept, and he knows he will soon join them. As soon as the circle completes, pauses, begins again.

Tiberius appears in the mouth of the alley, perfectly hapless. He comes to halt on the stain before him, a memorial if there ever was one, and it's the signal. Caligula doesn't bother to tell him to get off. They'll be stains too, soon, and he doubts Drusilla would mind.

* * *

at least it was a blood stain and not any other kind of stain y'know


	113. Old Dog, New Tricks

She's always lived in this house- this house with its big windows and middle class wallpaper and average garden. She knows it's not a bad life, really- she's feed and walked and patted-gingerly. She _knows_ it not bad, because she always sees him outside, a ragged scruffy dog with naked ribs and scars. And he always grins at her, a lopsided loose-tongue thing, though she thinks he must hate her- the sleek dog in the pretty decent house with her mannerly people, the one who gets two generous meals a day. And it goes on for years- she gets her two square meals, she refuses to sit and beg, and he stands on the other side of the fence and smiles at her.

Until she doesn't see him anymore, and assumes he's gone the way of most rogues- taken or dead or dying. She's upset, though she never spoke a word to him, the under-privileged. She never asked about his scars, never counted his ribs. She must be getting sentimental in her old age, she concludes, but after that food doesn't go down as easy as it did before. Her people seem worried, she guesses, and they coo at her more than they ever did, but something in her now enjoys their incessant petting.

Then comes the day when her neighbour brings home with him a strange smell, an odour not entirely unfamiliar. _A new dog_, she thinks_, _and sullenly thinks of having to put up with a yapping puppy, having to teach it _manners_, of all things. The next day, she hobbles out to investigate, sniffing suspiciously against the fence line. Through a gap in the white wooden slats, she glimpses a dog cautiously circling the central bird bath. He is black and tan and white, all over, and though she can see his scars, she can't see his ribs. She huffs in surprise, and he turns; after a moment, that trademark sloppy grin is on his face as though he never left. In her surprise- she can't help- she grunts and sits down, forgetting for a moment she refuses to sit for _anyone_ at all. It's a personal policy, after all.

* * *

the dog au which no one asked for

in which sable is a border collie and strong a collie x german shepherd thing

you are welcome


	114. Late

She never makes it to the city; she supposes it was a foolish idea anyway, and Morningstar waved away her excuses with a clear and callous clarity. "_You're a queen,_" she had snapped, and Sablefrost felt each and every word as a blow to her stomach. "_And queens _stay _in the nursery_." Morningstar had not been suspicious at that point, merely irate. Sablefrost prayed that the kits would be born during the raid, that somehow- miraculously- Sparkpool would help her dispose of them, or that perhaps they would all be born dead, surely the safest way to enter this world. But they're not even on time

They're late- the raiding party comes back, and she only swells- with her guilt and her worry and the unborn. And then it happens, in the middle of the night, and she lies awake in the thralls of her pain, but she mustn't let anyone know. Mustn't let anyone see. She rises and stumbles from the nursery, into the forest. There are four in total; a black tom and a black she-kit; a tabby tom; a faint grey she-kit with cream splotches- and she swears, staring down in the darkness, hollow and void, that she looks exactly like Strongclaw. The river lies mere feet away, but she lacks any will to drown the four beautiful creatures who knead at her stomach, who do not care for her crimes, who perhaps will never know the extent of her sins. Instead of discarding them, drowning them, she raises them. In a few months, she comes to realize the honey-amber of Oakkit's eyes are a perfect replica of Thornstreak's. She laughs. It's all too easy, and that's how it stays.

* * *

in which khia is replaced by a tiny cute strong-look-alike (but she's grey instead) who was the canon stillborn. don't have any name for her suggestions are welcome


	115. Log

He returns to the log many times. It's an unhealthy habit, a vice, of which he has many. He can smell the mud, hear the shriek of the wind and the harsh heavy thud of hail on the ground, but picturing it is beyond him, so it remains a simple log, dry and weathered , where not even the scent of her remains.

"I take it back," he whispers. _Your heart isn't made of ice,_ he'd said. _You _bleed. His sullen words from his impudent mouth, as he stood thrashing in his naivety, seething in his anger. "I love you." There was once a thrill to those taboo words, and they had tingled as they tripped off his tongue. The endearment is but a corpse, stagnant as it rises from his throat and fetid as it falls into the air.

He knows now, just how much it takes to make her bleed.

* * *

next TTATT chap is ongoing. it's not difficult to write but ugh i'm just out of mojo for the moment, so here's a fun drabble to tide you all over


	116. Nod

The blinding ache behind her eyes begins as soon as she sits up and, naturally, she immediately wishes she hadn't. The bruises on her arms and the apparent hangover in her head allude to a wild night, but when she glances at the over side of her bed, it's empty, untouched. If that's not a metaphor for her life, then what is? Still, Piper foregoes further attempts at humour in favour of rubbing her temples with the palms of her hands. _The hell happened?_ she thinks, wondering if Joe finally managed to sell her unspecified recreational drugs.

She's unsure of today's schedule, but _getting aspirin_ rates very highly on her list of things _to do immediately, you lazy ass._ Piper fumbles her way into the bathroom, hand over her eyes as sunlight streams cheerfully into her bedroom. The tiles are cool on her bare feet as she reaches across the sink and swings the medicine cabinet open wide. As if by divine intervention a packet of aspirin falls right into her outstretched hand. "You're the only drugs I'll ever need," she croons, tipping two into her mouth and swallowing with a hasty handful of water from the tap.

"Hey, don't abuse it until you, y'know, _abuse it_," a loud male voice says, obnoxious and obtrusive and entirely too close to her ear, which has started to develop a strange ringing sensation. Piper shrieks and feels the pain-killers begin to make an encore appearance, although she hastily coughs them back down. She whirls, brandishing the aspirin box in front of her, only to find her bathroom empty. _I'm going crazy_, she realizes. _Dad finally drove me off the deep end._

"Normally I'm the first thing women notice when they walk into a room," the voice remarks casually. It's so close she should almost feel his breath on her ear, but when she pivots, slowly, she's greeted with a mere reflection. It's not hers, of course, but she's seen the last of it for longer than she knows. The man in the mirror nods, in a sentient kind of way, and she faints. On her way down she wonders if hitting one's head hard enough can cure them of their neurological ailments.

* * *

this is what i'm creatively labelling 'the mirror au'. stay tuned


	117. Radish

Specklefrost enjoys the serene calm of the forest. In the herb groves, there is no lurking Morningstar, no glimpse of her thuggish brutes. The sharp smell of radish permeates the air as she plucks their leaves, one by one, with recklessly sharp claws. She lays them in a haphazard pile, because tidiness was never her skill and she doesn't plan on making it one. She's been a medicine cat for some six unhappy moons now, but she's settled into her role, although the bitter wish of a warrior dream is still very much a burden.

"What do you need radish for?" a voice chirps. Specklefrost closes her eyes and sighs, silently; it's the _real_ menace PureClan faces, although they can't tell, even when it stands right under their nose and starts chattering. "Do you _eat_ it?"

"Radish leaves have medicinal properties, Sorrelpaw," she snaps. She whips around to glare at him, a few stray leaves tumbling to the ground. Sorrelpaw bats at one with disarming disinterest. She grits her teeth; he shows no signs of leaving anytime soon, and the radish leaf supply is low as it is. "If you're going to bother me," she says slowly, making sure the idiot understands every syllable, "at least help me while you do it."

After that, it's a tradition. _Radish leaf stock is low_, one will say to the other, and so they go out and pick astringent leaves together. Soon after Sparkpool's ascension, the radish supply runs dangerously low. He never bothers to fill it back up again.


	118. Up

They've beat her and crushed her, but they do not relent. Clemency is a foreign concept, mercy a _disease_. They drag her from her cage, and her prison has never felt more like a sanctuary. She'll never come back to this pathetic haven, she knows. Never again retreat to her dark nest in the corner; her careful, quiet, cautious digging has been for nothing. Her walk is a slow funeral march, and death weighs her down with every step. She can barely move for the weight, almost collapses before they shove her into that clearing and then into the arena. The sheer hatred of the Clan is another layer she can't carry, and as the grey tom's claws tear through her pelt, she sinks to the ground. She presses her face to the grass. She gives up.

* * *

the au where smokefang murders Miss as if we needed another reason to hate him


	119. Break A Leg

She soon realises it's impossible to do one's makeup without their reflection. She has a meagre collection- mascara, eyeshadow, liquid eyeliner she always applies with a shaky liberal hand- but it's all useless considering she can't see where she's putting it. Piper dabs on a small amount of eyeshadow using uncertain guesswork. It's purple, her favourite, but it hardly matters when it's Theo's leering face staring back at her. Apparently he has a name (or so he's said) and so far, he's hung around for a week. She's certain she's not crazy, but she's not willing for an official opinion so she stays far away from doctors, psychiatrists and psychologists.

Tentatively, Piper brushes a little mascara over her lashes as Theo bats his own and puckers his lips. He's the single most annoying entity Piper has ever encountered, and it's something she doesn't say lightly.

"What's the special occasion?" he drawls. His eyes flicker downwards as she straightens her strapless lilac dress, and, unperturbed, linger inappropriately.

"For fuck's sake," she mutters, snapping her fingers impatiently in front of the mirror. "Eyes up here, you creep. It's a date, anyway, you misplaced reflection, so stop ogling me."

"I do not _ogle_," Theo gasps. "I _appreciate_." He winks, and then says, "Break a leg." Revulsion creeps up her spine and Piper pulls a face. It's not yet time to go- and it's Dante, anyway, who's bound to be 20 minutes late- but she can't stand seeing anymore of his face. Piper flees, though not before his loud cat-calling whistle echoes blithely through her apartment.


	120. Parched

She is parched. Aching, thirsting, empty...but it is nothing new. Desert life is tough, and it becomes no one, least of all Nox. She swims through each hazy day, coughing in the heat, wilting in the sunshine. A desert life is a tough one, a short one. Until he rides through with his glorious caravan, and she follows. The proud banners are colours she's never seen before- royal purple, aristocrat gold, mellow green. Nox will say she does not have a choice, but she does- and she chooses to leave her family, her sister, brother, parents, who will hardly miss another mouth to feed. Still, it's with the thought in mind that she will _return_. That is the choice refused to her, but she doesn't consider it as she pushes aside her labour and _follows_. Thirst and all.

* * *

another au, i know


	121. Thing

In his final moments, he is less than a cat. He is barely even a _thing_, a weak and starved creature, more blood than flesh, swamped in his pain. Once upon a time the thing known as Smokefang would have won this fight, pummeled his bright-eyed opponent, but he is no longer the proud strong tom of his youth. He spins towards the edge- gravity is the only thing he has, now, but even it is turning on him. He falls, clings to the gorge's side, and finds Sablefrost's eyes. In the moment before he disappears, the disgust in her eyes is enough to render him into nothing.


End file.
